FUTURE FAST FORWARD TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS IN E-COMMERCE - Majorel

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FUTURE FAST FORWARD TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS IN E-COMMERCE - Majorel
FUTURE FAST FORWARD
TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS
IN E-COMMERCE
FUTURE FAST FORWARD TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS IN E-COMMERCE - Majorel
FUTURE FAST FORWARD
TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS IN E-COMMERCE

                                        THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
                                        IN E-COMMERCE

AWARENESS

                 CONSIDERATION

                                       PURCHASE

                                                      RETENTION

                                           ADVOCACY

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FUTURE FAST FORWARD TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS IN E-COMMERCE - Majorel
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

E-commerce has evolved into an omni-              In other words: The relevance of the steps be-
present option for the distribution and           fore the purchase should not be underestimat-
purchasing of products and services in the        ed. During this pre-sales phase (awareness
past years. This is first and foremost the        & consideration), it is important to anticipate
result of enormous increase in efficiency         trends and customer needs and to react to
with simultaneous cost reductions compared        them. This is made possible with prescriptive
to the brick and mortar retail business. But      and predictive analyses of customer and mar-
not all e-commerce players benefit equally.       ket data. Moreover, customers must of course
Particularly small retailers face the issue       be made aware of new products. In this
that their sales revenues stagnate while          context, e-commerce platforms become in-
their customers’ expectations keep growing:       creasingly important as advertising platforms.
E-commerce today must be personalized,            Moreover, videos have become an integral
quick and seamless – otherwise customers          part of the customer journey, especially in the
quickly switch to the next available online       beginning when consumers are searching for
shop. In other words, the customer expe-          information about products or services.
rience must fulfil expectations, as it is one
of the most important ways a retailer can         Technology further supports customers in their    Once customers have decided on a product,
differentiate itself from its competition. This   decision-making process. Augmented Reality        the next step is to excel in the delivery of a
white paper will give you an overview of          (AR), for example, expands the user’s envi-       product. In this phase of the customer journey,
the trends and technologies that can help to      ronment by adding digital information and         companies can stand out by offering excep-
put smaller and medium-sized e-commerce           enables the search, selection and purchase        tionally quick, efficient and customer-friendly
providers on the map and compete with the         of a product that is optimally adjusted to the    delivery. Technologies, such as machine
major players.                                    customer’s current situation. AR exemplifies      learning and process automation, will help to
                                                  how the offline and online worlds increasing-     optimize the delivery and redesign the path
Modern technologies help companies to             ly converge and connect.                          to the customer.
fulfil customer expectations as efficiently and
effectively as possible. Certain service tasks    It is not expected that offline shopping will     Finally, companies face the challenge to
can be transferred to, for example, chatbots      completely disappear any time soon. On the        retain the customers’ loyalty and to increase
and intelligent virtual assistants, which are     contrary, e-commerce retailers are increas-       the value of their shopping cart. This requires
available 24/7, and allow these tasks to be       ingly trying to get customers into physical       a comprehensive customer experience
performed automatically. However, in some         contact with their brands through temporary       management that builds on technologies
cases, personal contact with a customer ser-      or permanent offline shops and to provide         such as artificial intelligence and analytics to
vice representative will remain the preferred     them with a holistic shopping experience. As      achieve personalized, efficient and effective
path for the customer. In this context, live      a result, consumers can choose from multiple      service, resulting in the best possible customer
video chats can provide scalable and still        channels and options for both their purchase      experience.
personal interactive contact. It is of utmost     and payment. In this pre-sales phase, Internet
importance that customers can contact the         of Things-based devices and processes that
company easily and without encountering           accelerate and simplify the decision-making
any obstacles at any point on their customer      process are becoming increasingly relevant.
journey. All steps of the customer journey        For example, smart shelves notify the custom-
must be integrated across all relevant chan-      er on their smartphone about relevant offers
nels to realize a holistic and smooth customer    nearby, whereas beacons (digital transmit-
experience.                                       ters) may trigger automatic payments when
                                                  the customer leaves a shop.

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E-COMMERCE EVERYWHERE:                              supplements or replaces in part or in full the         trading platform. However, German consum-
THE OMNIPRESENCE OF E-COMMERCE                      traditional steps of a transaction to carry it out     ers are committed online shoppers beyond
IN ALL SPHERES OF LIFE                              faster, at lower cost and with more ease.2             Amazon. Almost a quarter of the population
                                                                                                           primarily shops on the internet, and more than
Since the first attempts to sell goods through      Continuous growth – but not all                        half partially shops online. Only six per cent
the internet in the 1990s, the market has           players benefit equally                                of consumers exclusively shop in brick-and-
undergone a disruptive change. When                                                                        mortar stores.
Amazon and eBay were established in 1995,           Real and projected e-commerce growth
trading platforms with millions of products,        indicate that these benefits are widely recog-         However, there are considerable differences
which could be delivered immediately after          nized. In 2015, electronic retail made up just         regarding which product categories are most-
they were ordered, were inconceivable.              7.4 percent of the global retail trade volume,         ly frequently purchased online. For example,
Meanwhile, these aspects have become the            but by 2021 it is projected to reach 17.5              clothing, electronics, media, toys and leisure
new ‘normal’. E-commerce has become an              percent. Approximately 22 percent of this              products account for the highest share of
omnipresent aspect of economic activity and         represents cross-border e-commerce. One                e-commerce revenue. In these categories, it
consumers encounter it in nearly every area         e-commerce player connects many nations                is also Amazon, whogenerates the highest
of their daily life. Today, the purchase of         in particular: worldwide, Amazon is the most           revenue: the e-commerce giant accounts for
electronic devices, fashion, books or travel is     widely known and most established e-com-               90 percent of revenue from electronics, me-
unimaginable without e-commerce.                    merce platform. The company has reached                dia and leisure products. In total, the Amazon
                                                    an online population of 1.2 billion consum-            market place generates around 25 percent
And even areas that have previously been            ers, closely followed by the Chinese platform          of the overall online revenues, whereas the
characterized by offline transactions, such         Alibaba that reaches 1.07 billion people in            proprietary trading business generates 21
as food retail, health care and banking,            15 markets. In Germany, Amazon has also                percent of overall online revenues.
are increasingly traded online. Even the            grown to be the most popular e-commerce
online purchase of luxury brands is expect-
ed to increase to 25 percent by 2025. The
reasons for this development are obvious.
A comparable increase in efficiency with a
simultaneous reduction in costs cannot be           E-commerce share of total global retail sales from 2015 to 2021.
achieved by offline retail alone. Consequent-       Source: Medium, 2018
ly, e-commerce growth and the dynamic
market development will not decelerate any          20 %
time soon.
                                                                                                                                               17,5 %
                                                    18 %
Driven by the dynamic development of the
                                                                                                                                  15,5 %
market, the definition of e-commerce has also       16 %
changed. While traditionally e-commerce                                                                              13,7 %
only referred to electronic online retailing, the   14 %
term now also includes the initiation, negotia-                                                          11,9 %
tion, conclusion and execution of retail trad-      12 %
                                                                                          10,2 %
ing transactions across the entire internet and
other networks. In this respect, e-commerce         10 %                    8,6 %
                                                              7,4 %
                                                    8%

                                                    6%
                                                              2015          2016          2017           2018         2019         2020         2021

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This poses a major challenge for retailers with     CUSTOMER JOURNEY-                                     Additionally, offers, such as curated shopping
smaller online shops because just three of the      OVERARCHING TRENDS                                    and subscription-generated shopping servic-
100 largest and most successful online shops                                                              es, try to combine the efficiency of automat-
record 43 percent of revenues, although the         In the future, success in e-commerce will be          ed e-commerce processes with personal
e-commerce share in total retail revenue has        increasingly determined by how custom-                consultations and use the advantages of both
grown. This imbalance also bears witness            er-oriented a company is. A customer-centric          elements. The customer appreciates the more
to the fact that consumer loyalty for large         orientation means that the customer journey           or less individualized pre-selection by paying
e-commerce providers is often stronger than         steps – the initiation (awareness), negotiation       premium prices. The benefit that retailers real-
for smaller ones. The result is that revenues via   (consideration), conclusion and execution of          ize by offering customers a curated selection
proprietary online platforms often stagnate         retail translations (purchase) all the way to         may result in a competitive advantage – pro-
for smaller retailers. This often leads to paral-   the post-purchase phase (retention and ad-            vided the human component does not lead to
lel strategies: 35 percent of the 1,000 online      vocacy) – across all relevant channels – must         disproportionately high costs.
shops with the highest revenue also sell their      be integrated and aligned with individual
products on eBay. 43 percent do the same on         customer needs. Only this way it is possible          Regardless of whether a personal or auto-
Amazon.                                             to realize a holistic and smooth customer             mated interaction with customer service is
                                                    experience. Since the customer experience is          offered, it is important that customers can
                                                    one of the most important means of differen-          contact the company smoothly and seam-
                                                    tiation, it is highly critical to fulfil customers’   lessly throughout their customer journey. Easy
                                                    expectations during their entire journey.             accessibility regarding channel selection and
                                                                                                          the availability of company representatives is
                                                    The bar is set high: Companies must fulfil            among the top three factors that have a major
                                                    growing customer expectations during                  impact on customer satisfaction5.
                                                    the customer journey
                                                                                                          Chatbots, voice assistants or live-video
                                                    In addition to the challenges related to              chats: New channels increase customer
                                                    internal processes, this means that custom-           engagement
                                                    ers who are always online, fully informed
                                                    and therefore very demanding, need to be              Virtual assistants, such as voice assistants
                                                    satisfied. For example, customers expect both         or chatbots, are unparalleled in terms of
                                                    individualized communication, that takes their        availability as they can always be reached
                                                    relevant history along their entire customer          exactly where the customers also spend their
                                                    journey into account, as well as individual           time: on a smartphone. Some retailers have
                                                    offers at individual prices.                          already used this to their advantage by focus-
                                                                                                          ing exclusively on the distribution through
                                                    And although, due to the multitude of chan-           conversational commerce channels such as
                                                    nels and devices, customers can resolve most          WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or We-
                                                    of their issues on their own, in some cases           Chat. For example, Threads - a UK fashion
                                                    they prefer the direct and personal exchange          shop - offers the luxury brands in its product
                                                    with a company representative. At the same            line exclusively via messenger services. This
                                                    time, however, they often perceive that same          concept appears to be well-accepted thanks
                                                    direct contact as inefficient. To address this        to the direct and personal contact between
                                                    issue, certain process steps in customer              the shop’s designers or consultants and the
                                                    services are automated more and more often,           customers, resulting in significantly higher
                                                    for example by transferring certain tasks to          shopping cart values than usual.
                                                    intelligent virtual customer assistants (chatbots
                                                    and voice assistants).

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In addition, live-video chats, which are pro-     diate availability and give rise to anticipative     predictive analysis of customers and market
jected to see a growth of 87% in 2019, ena-       services. This development will have a long-         data are promising activities in preparation
ble scalable and still personal and interactive   term impact on future e-commerce and may             of the purchase. Companies that master these
communication between consumers and               result in the willingness to pay a little more for   activities are able to convince new customers
company representatives. The L‘Oréal beauty       same-day delivery to specific locations.6            in 40 to 50 percent of the cases – much high-
brand NYX already uses this chat type and                                                              er than the average ratio. At the same time,
provides consultations to its customers using     TRENDS ALONG THE                                     80 to 90 percent of existing customers return
Augmented Reality and face recognition            CUSTOMER JOURNEY                                     to a company that puts a specific emphasis
technology in real time. Beauty experts are                                                            on the pre-sales phase.
available via chat for beauty consultation                   Phase 1: Awareness - Enter-
appointments by smartphone, regardless of                    tain me! Draw attention with              More precisely, it can be assumed that online
location, thus enabling highly individualized                entertaining and targeted                 advertising, as one of the main options to
assistance. The online shop, where the show-                 approaches                                draw the consumers’ attention to one’s own
cased products can be ordered is directly                                                              products, will go through yet another change.
integrated in the app.                            Many companies underestimate the rele-               In the future, Google and Facebook, as the
                                                  vance of the phases and steps that consumers         current dominating marketing platforms, will
The clock is ticking Waiting times?               need to go through before they purchase.             have to share the market with e-commerce
No, thank you!                                    In order to be noticed and considered by             players such as Amazon, Alibaba or Tencent.
                                                  consumers, it is important to establish an agile     But even smaller e-commerce retailers may
The smooth and barrier-free interaction           digital marketing approach that anticipates          discover online marketing as additional
expected by customers goes hand in hand           and responds to trends and changing                  source of income and data. Already, many
with an ever-decreasing tolerance for waiting     customer needs during this pre-sales phase.          consumers start their search for a product
times. One consequence is, for example, the       Furthermore, the optimization of paid as well        on Amazon by reading product descriptions
high dropout rate for websites that load too      as organic searches and the prescriptive and         and reviews. Generally, about a quarter of
slowly. If a website is not available within
three seconds, many customers will leave
the page. For online retailers, this can have
very negative consequences since custom-
ers may move on to the competition. In the
same vein, waiting times for deliveries are
viewed increasingly more critical. As a result
of delivery models such as Amazon Prime,
delivery times of more than four days are
no longer acceptable for many customers.
Alternative approaches, such as delivery by
courier based on geo-localization as tested
by Zalando in collaboration with Parcify, are
very popular with customers thanks to their
high flexibility. As soon as the customers have
downloaded the app and entered the order
information, the bicycle couriers’ tracking
tool will show the customer’s location on their
smartphone and they can deliver the goods
to exactly this location. Options like these
accelerate the increasing perception of imme-

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                                                                                                 Amazon or Alibaba, for some time now, also
                                                                                                 utilizes visual input: Instead of searching for
                                                                                                 a product by entering text, the consumer
                                                                                                 uploads an image and searches for a product
                                                                                                 that is visually as similar as possible. Once
                                                                                                 it is found, he or she can directly place the
                                                                                                 product in the online shopping cart. With
                                                                                                 increasingly better performance of artificial
                                                                                                 intelligence-based technology, the image
                                                                                                 search will likely experience another upward
                                                                                                 trend as the search becomes even more
                                                                                                 precise. In addition, partnerships between
                                                                                                 social media platforms, such as Snapchat,
                                                                                                 Instagram or Pinterest, and e-commerce
                                                                                                 market places that harness the image search
                                                                                                 for their benefit offer great potential as the
                                                                                                 users of these platforms are already oriented
                                                                                                 towards online shopping. For instance, Pinter-
                                                                                                 est’s “shop the look” has 250 million monthly
                                                                                                 users. In cooperation with Amazon, Snapchat
                                                                                                 has recently developed a feature that allows
                                                                                                 searching for products on Amazon via image
                                                                                                 search and purchasing them there.

                                                                                                 Furthermore, the active use of voice assistants,
                                                                                                 such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant or
                                                                                                 Apple’s Siri, during product search is also not
                                                                                                 likely to abate any time soon. Worldwide, an
                                                                                                 average of 130 million questions are posed
all consumers buy a product right where the      part of the content that consumers pay most     on Alexa devices every day. This is most
online search started. Hence, it seems logical   attention to. Particularly popular are short    certainly the result of the speed and ease of
that the e-commerce giant also assumes the       advertising clips, so-called “snack ads”, and   entering the search request, which is superior
commercial advertising for these products. At    360-degree and personalized videos.             to all the other search alternatives. Thanks
currently 0.8 percent, advertising expendi-                                                      to continuously improving speech recogni-
tures are still comparatively low on the         Moreover, besides advertising videos            tion and processing, the error rate of smart
e-commerce platforms. However, this share is     streamed by companies, video has also           assistants will continue to decrease – and
expected to increase to 18 percent by 2027,      grown in importance in the active search        with it the frustration of users resulting from
which will generate additional revenues for      performed by the customer and has thus          misunderstood speech entries. But the search
e-commerce platforms.                            added yet another contact points to the         by voice also changes the presentation of re-
                                                 customer journey. YouTube, for instance, is     sults: The entry is not followed by an endless
In addition to display advertising on e-com-     one of the most important search engines        list of products or information, frequently there
merce pages, video marketing will become         and has a multitude of user- and compa-         is only one answer. To ensure that this answer
increasingly more relevant to generate           ny-generated videos on products and their       is valuable and relevant for the customer, the
awareness for products among existing and        use. The image search, which has been used      content needs to be rigorously optimized.
new customers. Mobile videos are already         by large e-commerce players, such as eBay,

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           Phase 2: Consideration -                 that more than 70 percent of all chatbots           important role in the decision-making process
           more information please!                 will be used for retail-focused activities and      both on the web pages of e-commerce
           Technologies supporting the              processes by 2023. Using chatbots, it may be        retailers or via social media platforms. Here,
           decision-making process                  possible to fulfil the expectations regarding       customers will search and find both inspira-
                                                    a personalized and efficient service that is        tion as well as information.8
In order for a customer to consider an e-com-       able to provide meaningful input into the
merce retailer or a product that this retailer      decision-making for a product, a service or a       Despite a multitude of information sources,
sells, all activities connected to the search       company.                                            it may still take a long time for customers to
must be seen as part of the customer journey                                                            make their final decision to purchase. More-
and be seamlessly integrated. Surprisingly,         Augmented Reality (AR) is another tech-             over, it can be a challenge to convince and
unsuccessful search is one of the main rea-         nology that also adjusts to the customer’s          motivate customers to decide for a product or
sons why consumers abandon a purchase:              respective context and is therefore able to         a brand starting from first contact all the way
It is therefore not surprising that in a study      significantly simplify the decision-making          to the purchase. A study commissioned by
conducted by Episerver in an e-commerce             process. Augmented reality enables a search,        SAP, which looked at the online shopping be-
context, 58 percent of all participants indi-       selection and shopping process that is ad-          havior of 20,000 consumers in 24 countries,
cated that a user-friendly search function was      justed to the customer’s environment. While         found that German customers leave their on-
the most important feature of an online shop.       virtual reality still lacks content and mass        line shopping cart untouched for a long time
It is thus essential that the search – regardless   market-capable devices, the implementation          before deciding on a purchase. The selected
of the device or channel used for it – quickly      of AR is significantly easier as the customer       products often remain in the shopping cart for
and precisely leads to results.                     does not require an additional device. Here,        up to 24 hours and even then, the purchase
                                                    only the physical environment-related digital       is ultimately often abandoned. Combined
In this step of the customer journey, the use       information mapped via the camera is placed         with a user interface that is not well-designed
of chatbots in their various forms can be par-      onto the screen of the smartphone or tablet to,     or the necessity to create an account, the
ticularly helpful. For example, as simple FAQ       for example, visualize virtual furniture in an      abandonment rate increases even more. A
bots, they can answer the most commonly             existing room (e.g. at Ikea or Bolia). Another      user-friendly shopping cart, live chats, mail-
occurring customer requests. As script bots or      example is the cosmetics chain Sephora: With        ings or discount actions are examples how to
NLU (natural language understanding) bots,          its AR-based Virtual Artist App, consumers          prolong the customer journey one step further
they can give advice regarding less complex         can virtually test make-up products.                and ultimately animate the customer to make
topics and initiate processes, such as making                                                           the purchase after all.
an appointment. Particularly in a retail            In the future, electronic word of mouth
context, it is easy to find a variety of appli-     (eWOM), i.e. the reviews and experience
cations for chatbots. Therefore, it’s projected     reports of other consumers, will also play an

How long does the product remain in the shopping cart until the decision is made whether to click on "Buy"?

73 % Within one day                                                                                            27 % One day or more

52 %                                                                          14 %                  7%         11 %           6%        10 %
Within one hour / immediately                                                 1 to 6 hours          6 hours to 1 to 6 days    One       More than
                                                                                                    one day                   week      one week

Source: W&V, 2018

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           Phase 3: Purchase - a bit of             Mobile Marches On.
           shopping here and there: Cus-            In APAC, Mobile now accounts for the majority of transactions.
           tomer experience during the
           purchase process of the future

The purchase phase in the customer journey                 North America
                                                                                                                Europe
clearly shows how closely the online and
offline worlds will be linked together in future.
                                                             39%                                             44%
E-commerce retailers increasingly try to get
their customers to physically experience                                                    Middle East &
                                                                                               Africa
their brands and product line via temporary
                                                                                             47%
                                                                                                                                   Asia Pacific

                                                                                                                                   51%
pop-up shops or permanent brick and mortar
stores. They aim to create a holistic, more                              Latin America
interactive and unique shopping experience
to differentiate themselves from their com-
                                                                         38%
petition. Examples for this are AmazonGo,
Alibaba’s Hema or Home24, which initially
only sold their products online. Another
example for the link between digital and
physical world are Google Local Inventory
Ads, where a product search on a smart-
phone shows ads from local retailers and
includes information on whether the product
is available from a specific retailer. These de-    one hand, and are able to trigger digital         ities. The share of online transactions carried
velopments also take into consideration that        payment processes when a customer leaves          out via mobile devices, which is currently at
many customers still like to shop directly at a     the store, on the other. Using beacons also       an average of 44 percent in Europe, is ex-
real store. More precisely, a study conducted       enables direct ordering of products online        pected to grow to approximately 60 percent
by the German Trade Association (Han-               that are sold out or that the customer tried on   –which is already a reality in Sweden.
delsverband Deutschland) found that three           in an offline store. While this technology was
quarters of all German consumers still like to      declared dead just a few years ago, it is now     In addition, mobile and social commerce,
shop offline every once in a while.                 experiencing another comeback. Also part          meaning shopping via social networks, will
                                                    of the Internet of Things ecosystem are the       influence each other and continue to rise
In the future, the purchase phase will be char-     voice assistants that were already mentioned      in importance. It is projected that social
acterized by a multitude of payment options         in previous customer journey phases. They         commerce, with growth rates of 25 per-
and channels through which purchases can            also have the potential to optimize the future    cent, will soon be one quarter of the entire
be transacted. In this phase particularly, In-      purchasing process. For instance, it will be      e-commerce market. However, not only the
ternet of Things-based devices and processes        possible to transact purchases with voice         purchase transaction, but also the commu-
will be of relevance since they can signifi-        commands or users can use voice biometrics        nication about it, is carried out via social
cantly accelerate and simplify the purchase.        to authenticate a purchase transaction.           networks and is thus a means for orientation
This includes, for example, intelligent shelves                                                       and information regarding a product for other
or so-called beacons, meaning transmitters          Mobile commerce is closely connected with         users.
that send Bluetooth signals in the form of push     the shopping activities along the customer
messages to consumers’ smartphones. Bea-            journey, and this trend will most likely not
cons enable the targeted and context-specific       disappear. On the contrary, it is expected to
transmission of digital information, on the         grow with the expansion of technical possibil-

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           Phase 4: Retention - after the
           purchase is before a purchase

Delivery at lightning speed: Efficiency
and flexibility will characterize future
delivery processes

An important aspect of the after-sales phase
is to make it through the so-called last mile
and to deliver the ordered product to the
desired location at the right time. All related
activities will develop dynamically in the
future and have the potential to generate a
major competitive edge. By using machine
learning or process automation, for example,
it is possible to achieve an even more efficient
and customer-friendly delivery.

Customer-friendliness in relation to deliveries    The same benefits may be achieved by using           related customer experience. To achieve this,
refers to speed and accuracy in terms of ful-      innovative delivery technologies, such as            it becomes ever more critical that all data that
filling the customers’ exact requirements. This    drones. In Iceland, for example, the most suc-       can be derived from the touchpoints during
is, for example, the case if delivery occurs on    cessful Icelandic e-commerce shop, aha.is,           the customer journey are analyzed and man-
the same or the next day, which many online        delivers by drone. The overall 15 drones man-        aged using technologies, such as artificial
retailers such as Amazon, DocMorris or Tesco       age 30 deliveries with up to three kilogram in       intelligence. In this respect, speech and text
already offer. In London, Aldi now offers de-      weight per day. The customer receives a text         processing and analysis, big data analytics
livery within two hours. By 2023, 78 percent       message when they arrive at their destina-           or interface management will be applied.
of all logistics companies that participated in    tion. After confirming their availability, the       In addition to processing customer data
a representative survey conducted by Zebra         merchandise is lowered to the ground using           and the customers’ interaction history with a
Technologies expect same-day delivery              a wire. In Finland and Australia, Alphabet,          company, the analysis of customer emotions
to be the norm. 40 percent expect that by          Amazon and UPS are testing similar models.           and perceptions will become increasingly
2028 deliveries within two hours will be the                                                            more relevant to enable the best possible
standard. However, in order to realize these       Customer retention through holistic,                 customer experience. All this clearly shows
very short delivery times, it will be necessary    technology based customer experience                 how complex holistic customer experience
to collaborate with crowdsourcing provid-          management                                           management can be.
ers that have flexible access to freelance
couriers.                                          In the future as well, it will not be an easy task   Moreover, anticipative customer service and
                                                   to establish customer loyalty and increase the       support across multiple channels will become
The “click & collect” model, in which products     profitability of individual customers. Gener-        increasingly more important in order to retain
are purchased online, but can be picked up         ally, it can be assumed that customers will          customers. It will become more technolo-
at the store, will also gain in relevance as it    continue to be ready to switch quickly, which        gy-supported and -based, which enables a
provides the customers with lower shipping         makes customer retention measures even               higher degree of personalization, efficiency
costs and more flexibility.                        more relevant. First and foremost, it will be im-    and effectivity.
                                                   portant to optimize the core product and the

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           Phase 5: Advocacy -                     Consulting                                            Content moderation
           E-commerce professionalizes
           word of mouth                           Let us provide you with holistic advice con-          The volume of content that is generated by
                                                   cerning customer experience by allowing our           companies and consumers via social media
                                                   consulting team help you analyze or optimize          or on product review pages is likely to
Because the reviews of other customers             the customer journeys that are relevant for           increase even more in the future. It is essential
represent a highly relevant and much used          you or develop future-proof omni-channel              to manage this content to make these contact
source of information, e-commerce retailers        strategies. We are also available to assist           points customer-friendly and provide con-
will keep trying to understand the mechanism       you with our consulting solutions concerning          sumers with an overall positive experience.
behind those reviews in order to control and       technologies in terms of automation and               We help you both strategically as well as
use them directly to their benefit. Based on the   artificial intelligence for agile digitalization      operationally to harness the potential inherent
data and findings from customer experience         and optimization of customer interactions or          in social media and at the same time minimize
management, it will become easier to find          customer service processes.                           related risks.
suitable brand ambassadors and assign them
directly to various communities.                   CRM Analytics                                         Personalized videos

However, this will only work if customers          Our CRM Analytics solutions will help you             Videos will stay relevant in future years
have experienced an overall positive cus-          analyze and utilize the multitude of data that        as both an information and entertainment
tomer journey and show high engagement             accompany the new channels in the customer            medium. Utilize this development and compel
in relation to a brand or a specific product.      journey. Our Analytics platform supports              your customers by creating personalized and
Only in these cases, they may be positive          customer service through the real-time gen-           entertaining video content.
ambassadors for a company.                         eration of new insights and specific recom-
                                                   mendations for action by anticipating current
In summary, we can conclude that the               and future customer behavior. As a result, you
developments in e-commerce and beyond              will be able to offer your customers a positive
hold enormous potential for designing the          customer experience and increase your
customer journey to be even more efficient         profitability.
and effective in order to address customer
demands more adequately. At the same time,         Chatbots and voice assistants
the implementation of a seamless and smooth
customer journey requires the comprehensive        Thanks to the ease of use, speed and immedi-
integration and a holistic management of the       ate access to information, chatbots and voice
many channels, technologies and media. We          assistants will continue to simplify the daily life
look forward to assisting you as an experi-        of many consumers. Whether FAQ chatbot
enced partner if you wish to successfully ad-      or complex interaction scenarios via chat or
dress these challenges. Learn more about our       voice assistant – we provide comprehensive
future-oriented solutions in the next section.     consultations regarding the use of smart
                                                   assistants and help with their implementation
REDEFINE THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY                      and the operation of your conversational
IN E-COMMERCE WITH MAJOREL                         interfaces.

Our unique experience of the e-commerce
landscape means that we are ideally placed
to support you at every stage of your journey.

                                                                                                                                             11
FUTURE FAST FORWARD
     TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS IN E-COMMERCE

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  TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS IN E-COMMERCE

THE AUTHORS

              Tilman Wiebel                               Friedemann Dembski                              Dr. Carolin Wernicke
            Director eCommerce                         Manager Consulting eCommerce                 Innovation Management Consultant
             Majorel Germany                                 Majorel Germany                                 Majorel Germany

ABOUT MAJOREL                                                                                   CONTACT

Majorel designs, delivers and differentiates     Phone Group, ECCO Outsourcing and              Majorel Deutschland GmbH
customer experience on behalf of some of the     Pioneers Outsourcing. The group has com-       An der Autobahn 22
world’s most respected companies. It provi-      bined annual revenues of €1.2bn and over       33333 Gütersloh
des classic customer communication as well       500 clients globally across many industry
as digital solutions such as social media and    sectors. It has more than 48,000 people in     E-mail: ecommerce@majorel.biz
online communications, automated interac-        28 countries worldwide, with market-leading    Telephone: +49 5241 80-45187
tion and AI, analytics, self-service and other   positions in Europe, Middle East and Africa,
customer lifecycle solutions.                    while also having a strong presence in Asia
                                                 and the Americas.
Majorel brings together Bertelsmann and Sa-
ham group’s worldwide customer experience        For more information about Majorel visit:
businesses, including Arvato CRM Solutions,      www.majorel.com

                                                                                                                                14
Majorel Deutschland GmbH
  An der Autobahn 22
    33333 Gütersloh

 ecommerce@majorel.biz
   +49 5241 80-45187
    www.majorel.com
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